The restoration will by Mayumi Suzuki

Description

The restoration will by Mayumi Suzuki

Signed copies * only 87 copies in total

My parents, who a owned photo studio, went missing after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Our house was destroyed. It was a place for working, but also for living. I grew up there. Where their photo studio once stood was nothing but a pile of rubble. I uncovered what remained of the darkroom, and then found my father’s camera covered in mud. It was at that moment that I first began to regret not taking over my parents’ photo studio.

One day, I tried to take a landscape photo with my father’s muddy lens. The image came out dark and blurry, like a view of the deceased. Through taking it, I felt I could connect this world with that world. “What he regretted his death?” “How he looks down our new town reconstructed if he was alive?” “What does he feel that I grown up as photographer?” These questions give me the reason to take photographs. I felt like I could have a conversation with my parents, though in fact that is impossible.

Also, I had picked up some my childhood’s pictures which taken by my father. These are changing color,losing part of images. The portraits taken by my father were stained and discolored. These scars are similar to the damage seen in my town, similar to my memories which I am slowly losing.

I hope to retain my memory and my family history through this book. By arranging these photos, I have attempted to restoration his will.